


Light

by jetplane



Series: be not proud [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, Death, Drug Use, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Murder, Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 03:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21439240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jetplane/pseuds/jetplane
Summary: what would've happened if Tobias Hankel hadn't been able to resuscitate Spencer Reid successfully
Relationships: Penelope Garcia/Derek Morgan
Series: be not proud [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1780816
Comments: 3
Kudos: 128





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> a short story, written as part of a NaNoWriMo 2019 project

“Oh my God,” Garcia whispered. “He’s killing him.”

Tobias stood over Reid’s convulsing body. Both Garcia and Gideon stared at the monitor as the video feed showed the BAU member shudder and go limp.

“That’s the devil leaving your body,” Hankel said in the gruff voice of his father. Then, something changed in his posture and he rushed out of frame.

Gideon darted out of the room. Hotch, spotting the movement from outside, tried to follow him, but Jason slipped away. Hotch looked into Garcia’s room and immediately knew what had happened.

Reid lay motionless on the floor, still tied to the chair. Hotch was dimly aware of the other agents crowding around the screen, but all he could see was the body of his youngest agent, lifeless, as the serial killer holding him hostage appeared back in frame.

“Gideon,” Hotch called out as the murderer knelt over Reid’s body. The team watched as Tobias began performing compressions on Reid’s body. A dangerous flame of hope flickered within the unit. 

A minute passed. Then another. Nobody spoke. They all stared in silence, desperately willing their colleague to move, to breathe, to do anything again. But he didn’t.

None of the agents had any idea how long it’s been when Gideon finally spoke. “He’s gone,” the profiler announced solemnly.

“Sir, there’s still a chance,” Emily protested. The unsub, back as himself, was still trying to revive Reid.

Jason shook his head. “It’s been too long. Reid’s not coming back.”

JJ gasped and placed a hand over her mouth. Tears ran down her cheeks. “No,” she whispered.

“No!” Morgan yelled out. His fist went through the nearest wall, but he didn’t even feel it. “No, no, no.” Morgan shook his head as the anger left his body. He fell to his knees and covered his face with his hands.

Garcia stood up abruptly. She pushed her chair back and walked away, whispering something to herself. No one followed her.

“We still need to find him,” Gideon said to his team. “We need to bring him home.”


	2. Two

It took two days for the team to find where Hankel had been keeping Spencer. Gideon tried not to let his agents be on-scene when the place was raided, but they insisted. So when a SWAT officer broke down the door to Hankel’s lair, every member of the BAU was behind him. Even Garcia, who never went out in the field, was stationed with the law enforcement officers nearby.

“Tobias Hankel?” Hotch called out as SWAT members checked out the rest of the room. “FBI. Hands where we can see them.”

Hankel raised his hands slowly. He dropped a small knife onto the ground.

“Don’t move,” Morgan ordered him. The unsub did as he was told. Derek rushed the man, grabbing his arms and turning him around to handcuff him like he had done to hundreds of criminals before him. But as he tried to cuff Hankel, the restraints slipped out of his hands. He retrieved them quickly and tried again, but his fingers trembled too much. Morgan looked to Gideon helplessly.

“It’s okay,” Hotch said, putting a hand on his agent’s shoulder reassuringly. He picked up the handcuffs from the ground and snapped them around the criminal’s wrists. The profiler handed off custody to a faceless SWAT agent, who led Hankel away without a word.

The SWAT team leader approached Gideon, a sympathetic expression on her face. “We found your agent,” she told him. Gideon closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Then he nodded. “Show us.”

The woman led the team to the back of the room. Still tied to a chair was the body of a young man. His head slumped forward, and his hair obscured his face, but even in the dim light there was no mistaking Reid. Any small, desperate hope the team might’ve had that their genius was still alive was snuffed out. It was as clear as day that he was long gone.

Gideon approached with a heavy heart. He knelt respectfully a few feet away, looking at the corpse with a pained expression. The rest of the team held back, watching.

“I’m sorry, Reid,” Gideon muttered to the shell that had once been his student. He closed his eyes and a tear ran down his cheek. Gideon didn’t bother to wipe it away. “Truly, I am sorry.”

He stood up and dusted off his pants, then turned to face the team. “We did everything we could,” he told them, although it sounded like he needed to hear those words every bit as much as the rest of the team. “Reid knew that.”

“It’s not enough,” JJ choked out weakly. “Gideon-“ Her voice cracked. “He was alone. I left him alone.”

Morgan shook his head, arms folded. “Come on, JJ. It’s not your fault.”

She roughly brushed her tears from my face. “I shouldn’t have let him go off on his own. I should have stayed with him,” she insisted, emotion spilling into her voice.

“You’re not responsible for what happened,” Hotch said, his voice gentle. “You had no idea Hankel was the unsub. Any of us could have done the same thing.”

“But you didn’t,” JJ argued. Emily tried to reach out to her teammate, but she pulled away. “I did. I killed Reid.”

She removed the gun holster from her belt and tossed it onto the floor, then pulled out her credentials and dropped them beside her firearm. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t do this. I don’t deserve to be here.”

“JJ!” Gideon called to the agent’s retreating back, but she didn’t respond.

Emily glanced at the others. “I’ll go after her,” she murmured. No one argued with her, so she hurried out the door on JJ’s heels. The rest of the agents stood there in frozen silence.

A few SWAT team members hovered around, unsure of what to do. “Agent Gideon?” one ventured after a moment. “What would you like us to do?”

Gideon let out a sigh. In the low light of the unsub’s lair, it seemed that the profiler had aged a decade over the past few minutes. He put a hand to his forehead and looked around. “Get the crime scene techs in here. I want everything photographed, every piece of evidence collected, and I want a complete autopsy on all of the victims. Any and all findings are to be sent to me at the BAU.”

“Sir?” a SWAT member questioned. “I thought that BAU’s jurisdiction ended at-”

“Tobias Hankel killed our friend,” Morgan snapped. “We don’t give a damn about jurisdiction. Give us the information.” 

“Morgan,” Hotch warned firmly, but he put his hand on the agent’s shoulder with a gentle touch. He nodded to the SWAT team. “We’re staying on this case.”

“Of course, sir,” the SWAT agent replied meekly. He hurried off. 

Emily appeared back in the room with Garcia, but not JJ. Hotch gave her a questioning look. She shook her head. “She wouldn’t listen to me.”

“She needs time to process,” Gideon said. 

“What’s going to happen to Hankel?” Garcia asked the profilers as she glanced around the room, carefully avoiding looking at Reid’s body. 

“He’s going to jail,” Emily replied. “Right?”

“He’s severely mentally ill,” Gideon pointed out in a low voice. “He’s been through years of abuse by his father and he needs serious help. Any judge will see that.”

“So he’s just going to walk?” Morgan asked in disbelief. “After what he did to all those people? I don’t care what happened to him when he was a kid. He killed Reid, Gideon! He should rot in hell!”

“Reid would’ve wanted Hankel to get treatment,” Gideon replied calmly. 

“Reid would’ve wanted to live,” Derek countered angrily. “But he’s dead, and you’re saying that the man who killed him should get to go free?”

Gideon reached out to try and comfort Morgan, but he pushed Gideon’s hand away with such force that for a moment Hotch thought he might have to step in to break a fight. But Gideon backed off, and the two agents separated without a word. 

“I just thought of something,” Garcia whispered in a quiet, haunted voice. “Who’s going to tell Reid’s mom?”

“We will,” Hotch said. “All of us.”


	3. Three

JJ met the rest of the BAU outside the Bennington Sanitarium. She looked like she hadn’t been eating or sleeping much since Reid’s death. Then again, none of the other team members had been doing much of either since the last time they’d seen each other. They were just glad to be back together. 

Garcia was the first to greet JJ. “It’s good to see you again, JJ. We’ve missed you.”

JJ brushed her hair out of her face but didn’t look at her friend or anyone else. “I’m only here for Reid’s mom,” she replied curtly. “I’m not coming back to the Bureau, so please don’t try to convince me.”

Garcia pulled away slightly, but then nodded. “Okay,” she responded quietly.

“Of course,” Hotch said. “We’re glad to have you here.”

JJ nodded. “It’s...good to see all of you again,” she admitted. The tiniest smile appeared on her face before being masked once again by grief and guilt. 

“Well, we should go in,” Gideon said awkwardly. He opened the door to the facility and gestured inside. The team filed in. 

Hotch approached the woman working at the front desk. “Hello, I’m Aaron Hotchner with the FBI,” he introduced himself. He started to pull out his credentials, but the woman shook her head. 

“It’s okay, Agent Hotchner,” she said. “I know who you are.”

Hotch raised an eyebrow quizzically. “You do?”

She nodded, giving him a warm smile. “Dr. Reid mentions you often in his letters. All of you, in fact,” the woman added, glancing to the rest of the team. The agents exchanged looks between themselves. 

“I presume you’re here to see Diana? Will Dr. Reid be meeting you here?” she asked eagerly. 

Hotch looked away. After a moment, he shook his head. 

“Oh,” the woman said. She shot a confused look at Hotch. “I don’t understand, then.”

The profiler took a deep breath. “Dr. Reid was killed in the line of duty several days ago,” he told her quietly. “We’ve come to inform his mother.”

“Oh,” she gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth. She shook her head, looking to Hotch and the other agents in disbelief. “I-I didn’t realize. I’m very sorry.”

Hotch nodded, looking at the woman with a compassionate gaze. “Would it be possible for us to speak with Diana Reid?”

The woman blinked a couple times. She looked down at her computer, then back at the agent. “I’ll have to speak with my supervisor,” she murmured. “Since you’re not on the approved visitors list. It might take a few minutes.”

“Of course,” Gideon replied, coming up from behind Hotch to stand by his colleague’s side. “We understand. Take your time.” She nodded quickly and hurried off. 

A few minutes passed in tense silence before the woman returned with an older man. He looked over the agents. “My name is Louis Barnes. I’m the director here at Bennington Sanitarium.” He shook hands with each member of the BAU. “I understand you are all colleagues of Diana Reid’s son?”

“We were, yes,” Hotch replied. “Dr. Spencer Reid was a member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. We worked closely together.”

Hotch handed over his credentials. The man examined it and then handed it back to the agent. 

“I can take you to see Mrs. Reid now,” Mr. Barnes said. 

“Thank you,” Hotch said. He motioned for the agents to follow him. They walked down a hallway and into a courtyard where patients and nurses milled around. Diana Reid sat alone on a bench, writing in her journal. She looked up as the group approached her. 

“Diana,” Mr. Barnes said. “I have some people who are here to talk to you. Would that be okay?”

The woman’s eyes lit up as she recognized the profilers. “Of course,” she replied. “You’re friends of Spencer’s, aren’t you?”

Gideon swallowed hard, forcing himself to meet the woman’s gaze. “Yes,” he said gently. “We are.” He glanced to the director. “Is there someplace we can speak a little more privately?”

“We can go to my room,” Diana offered. She looked to the director for permission. He gave a nod. She packed up her writing things and stood up, leading the agents back into the building. They followed her up a flight of stairs and into her bedroom. A nurse and two orderlies hovered in the doorway, but Mrs. Reid didn’t seem to notice. 

“So, what are all of Spencer’s friends doing out here?” Diana asked. “Does this have something to do with why my son hasn’t been writing to me? Please remind him how I worry when he doesn’t write.”

Her expression changed when none of the agents said anything. “What’s going on?” she asked warily. “Where is my son?”

“Mrs. Reid,” Gideon began. “Our team was working a very difficult case with a dangerous serial killer. Your son was the first to discover that the killer was an extremely disturbed young man named Tobias Hankel. He had made contact with him when Mr. Hankel realized that we were onto him.”

He took a few steps towards Mrs. Reid, but she held her hands up defensively. “Don’t come any closer,” she warned him, eyes narrowing. “Tell me where Spencer is. Tell me he’s alright.”

Gideon shook his head sadly. “Mr. Hankel was suffering from a delusion that he was carrying out the work of God. He took Spencer to a secondary location, and we were unable to track them.” He clasped his hands together and looked away. “I’m very sorry, but your son died before we could get to him. We did everything we could.”

“No,” Diana cried out. She lunged at Gideon, but the orderlies expertly grabbed her and held her back. “No, you’re lying to me! I want to see Spencer!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Reid,” Gideon repeated. “Truly. We all are.”

“You’re from the government!” she shouted accusingly, struggling against the orderlies’ grasp. “The government always lies! Give me my son!”

Mr. Barnes looked to the team sadly. “I think it would be best if you left now,” he uttered quietly as a nurse filled a syringe with medicine. Gideon nodded. Hotch motioned for the team to follow. 

Everyone filed out except for JJ, who stood motionless as she watched Diana Reid get injected with a sedative. She continued to fight for a few moments before quieting, and then going limp. The orderlies carried her onto the bed and lay her down. 

“JJ,” Morgan said softly. JJ turned to the team with sad eyes. 

“I did this,” she whispered. “All of this - it’s my fault. None of this would have happened if I’d just stayed with him.”

“JJ,” Emily said in a soothing voice. “You didn’t do this. Hankel did.”

The blonde agent shook her head. “It was our job to stop him. And we failed. I failed.”

Tears filled Garcia’s eyes. “JJ, none of us blame you for what happened to Reid.”

“You should,” JJ replied despondently. 

“JJ, Reid wouldn’t have blamed you for what happened. And he wouldn’t have wanted you to blame yourself,” Gideon gently told her. 

“You’re a good agent,” Hotch reassured her. “We need you on the team. Now more than ever.”

JJ shook her head and wiped her eyes. “You’re better off without me.”

She pushed through the doorway, past the others, and down the hallway. Halfway down, she stopped and turned. 

“Please don’t follow me,” she said. “I’m not coming back. Let me go.”

It killed the team, but they did.


	4. Four

The coroner released the results of Reid’s autopsy several weeks later. His cause of death was officially listed as a hydromorphone overdose. The drugs had stopped his breathing. The coroner assured the team that his death hadn’t been painful, but this was a small comfort to the grieving agents. 

As JJ had promised, she left the BAU after the Hankel case was closed. Her guilt was so great that she refused to return even for Reid’s funeral. When Chief Strauss finally declared her position vacant and ordered her office to be cleared, the team packed up her things and placed them in boxes outside her apartment. It would be months before the former liaison could bear to look at her team again. 

Reid’s desk, on the other hand, remained as it had been the day the young agent had left for Georgia. Nobody dared to touch or move anything, even as new agents moved into the bullpen and needed a place to work. The space was a painful reminder of what the team had lost, but it was better than the alternative. To remove Reid’s desk would be to accept that he was really gone. Even suggesting it felt like a betrayal, like an erasure of everything Spencer had accomplished in his short life. 

Not that Reid’s accomplishments could ever be erased. His death, as painful and horrible as it had been, inspired every member of the team in their own ways. Reid’s absence was more powerful than he ever could have expected during his life.

For Aaron, losing Spencer gave him a new perspective on his own life. He took time off to grieve, and he returned with a determination to give everything of himself not just to his work but also to his family. When serial killer George Foyet began to target his wife and child, Hotch stayed by their side and managed to save Haley and Jack from becoming victims of his work. In a way, Haley Hotchner owed both her life and her marriage to Reid, although she would never know that. 

Gideon continued to work on profiling cases, but he eventually decided to return to teaching. He joined forces with his longtime friend and colleague David Rossi, who he pulled out of retirement, to train hundreds of new profilers for BAU teams that would go on to solve thousands of cases. It pained Gideon to know that Rossi would never meet his best student, but he kept Reid’s flame alive with such intensity that Rossi himself sometimes forgot that he had never actually known the young genius. 

Morgan, like Aaron, returned to his family. He flew back to Chicago between every case, helping to track down dozens of Carl Buford’s other victims. When he had gathered enough testimonies to make sure Carl never saw the outside of a prison again, he turned his attention to rebuilding the community center that had changed his life. Derek wanted to make sure that no kid from his neighborhood ever had to grow up with the fear and instability that he (or Reid) had.

For a long time, it seemed that Garcia would follow in JJ’s footsteps and leave the BAU. But she eventually did return, much to the relief of the rest of the team. She continued her technical work, both for the FBI and for Morgan, to help him with his new project. Some time during their work together, she got up the courage to admit her true feelings to Derek, and the two were married within a year. When their son was born, they named him Spencer Garcia-Morgan.

Emily, the newest member of the team, struggled to find her place in the FBI after Reid’s death. She’d known him for the least amount of time, and yet she was profoundly affected by his absence in a way she could never quite understand. Prentiss, in her grief, learned to lean on her teammates in a way she never would have been able to do otherwise. Years later, her past came back up when Ian Doyle came after her. But working together, they were all able to stop him as one. 

JJ eventually forgave herself for what happened with Reid. In time, she came to realize that her team had been right; Reid would’ve wanted her to be able to move on and to continue her work for the FBI. So she returned to the BAU, and committed herself to preventing others from experiencing the same type of loss that she had. Although JJ never stopped regretting what had happened to her surrogate little brother, she took some comfort in knowing that he was at peace. 

Diana never got over the death of her son. How could she? How could any mother? She coped and grieved in her own way, writing long letters to Spencer that she would never get to send. But she also kept up with the BAU, mailing letters to each member of the team. The agents were more than happy to keep her updated on their “adventures”. It helped them keep Reid alive, too.

Several years later, Diana Reid was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Her doctors fought valiantly to give her more time, but in the end all she wanted to do was to be reunited with her son. She slipped away one quiet night, in her dark bedroom, and awoke in the light. 

“Mom?” a voice called out. “Mom!”

She spun around to see a young man with shaggy brown hair and an enormous grin. He was bathed in a warm glow and looked exactly as she had remembered him. “Spencer?” Diana asked in wonder. “Spencer, is that you?”

The pair raced towards each other. “Mom,” Spencer breathed as he tackled his mother into a hug. “I’ve been waiting for you!”

Diana pulled away to look at Spencer with a teary smile. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Reid hugged his mother again. “I know,” he replied. “I’m sorry I had to leave you.”

She shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” Diana reassured him, softly stroking her son’s cheek. “We’re both here now, and that’s all that matters.”

Spencer nodded, taking in his mother’s face for the first time in over a decade. He took her hand in his. “Come on,” he said, pulling her towards the light. “Riley and Roslyn have been waiting to meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this story! Please leave feedback in the comments if you have any!


End file.
